The Supreme Court has seemingly faced delays in releasing decisions for its october terms in recent years. A significant leak of the Dobbs draft in May 2022, led the Court to increase their efforts in deterring such an occurrence from happening again. This effort arguably affected the pace of decision release for the October 2022 term. It took the Court until January 2023 to release its first opinion, marking the longest time it had ever taken for a first term opinion release.
This delay was speculated to be a consequence of the unprecedented leak and the subsequent efforts to prevent a similar occurrence in the future. As evidence, the investigative firm responsible for identifying the leak culprit released their findings on January 19, 2023, and the Court subsequently released its first term decision four days later.
As of January 2024, only one decision has been released, the Acheson Hotels v. Laufer case, causing speculation as to whether the gradual reduction in decisions is becoming a new norm for the Supreme Court. The reduction in decisions mirrors the Court’s path dependency in other areas.
Regarding authorship of the next set of decisions, speculation can arise from various angles. Based on the average time between arguments and decisions, it could be predicted that Sotomayor and Thomas, being the quickest on the current Court, might author next. Another data point is the fact that Justice Barrett authored the first opinion both last term and this term, making it unlikely for her to author the Court’s second opinion of this term.
An interesting element highlighted by Chief Justice Roberts in his year-end report was the effect of artificial intelligence on judicial work. Although he asserted the enduring importance of the human element in judging, he also acknowledged the potential changes that AI could bring to how judges perform their jobs.
With this in mind, perhaps the justices could consider integrating new technologies into their processes. Despite the human element remaining crucial, AI could potentially accelerate the writing process, which might provide the catalyst the Court needs considering the current pace of decision delivery.
Article originally appeared in Empirical SCOTUS.